James Whetzel is a uniquely eclectic performer. He plays both
acoustic music and electronic music. He sings his own West African
palmwine guitar songs, and he plays original songs inspired by Indian
folk and Classical music while playing sarod, a fretless Indian lute.
He also recites "tabla poetry," which are spoken word pieces based on
the intense beats of the Indian tabla drums. He is also a highly
skilled and innovative Tuvan style throat singer.
James has played many styles of music. He sings and plays thrash
metal electric guitar with the band Buddhist Priest. He was the
dynamic front man for the prog. rock/pop punk Giant Peach. He has
performed Avant-Garde European Classical music by composer Byron Au
Yong, and has made Avant-Garde African Classical music with the
African percussionist Yaw Asare. He is also a highly skilled
remixer/DJ and live electronic artist. His African/Indian remix of
Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech, and his Arabic/Indian
remix of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War" have received a great deal of
attention.
He began playing music as a kid, learning first to play piano and
trombone. Then in his teens, inspired by Hetfield and Hammett, he
switched to guitar and rocked heavily. Later he discovered the sounds
of Moroccan music and was captivated by the polyrhythmic beats and
modal melodies. This led him to check out other musical sounds from
around the planet and soon after he discovered West African Pop music,
and Indian Classical music.
He eventually became an ethnomusicologist which gave him the
opportunity to meet and study with some amazing musicians. He studied
West African palmwine guitar music with the legendary Nigerian
musician I. K. Dairo and then with the legendary Ghanaian musician Koo
Nimo. He performed with Koo Nimo as his back up guitarist in several
shows in the US.
He was first introduced to Indian tabla by the American tabla player
Lowell Lybarger. Lowell in term introduced him to the young Indian
virtuoso tabla player Vishal Nagar. James studied with Vishal and
also played with him in fusion music projects. He also played in a
group called Awaz which featured the dancer Urmila Nagar, and mixed
Indian fusion music with straight up Indian Classical music.
He started doing solo shows in 2001. Performing music for the West
Coast production of the show "The Erotica Project."
In 2003 he started playing in nightclubs doing mixing live music with
electronic music. In 2004 he was part a collective with tabla player
and producer Shri Deepayan and DJ Gringo Starr which produced the
Tandav club night. A year later the group decided to end the Tandav
nights, in order that all the members could spend more time on
producing music. In 2005 Shri Deepayan and James founded the group
Mean Deep to explore their mix of live and electronic sounds.
James has played at all the major festivals in Seattle including
Bumbershoot, the Seattle International Children's Festival, Folklife
and many others. He opened for Afro-Celt Sound System in 2003 at the
showbox and also for Panjabi MC in 2004 also at the showbox.
He was commissioned by the City of Seattle to produce an
Internationally flavored DJ mix in 2006. This mix plays every day in
the International Fountain at Seattle Center. His avant-garde African
Classical music collaborations with drummer Yaw Asare are featured as
part of the "audio response" collection of the Seattle Art Museum.